Yearly Archives: 2012

After much contemplation, I have decided to move from a WordPress.com blog to a self-hosted WordPress.org website. I bought my domain name on last Sunday, and have exported Sugarpeach to my new website. There are still some loose ends to be tied up on these sites, especially the redirection of links, but my new website is for the most part ready. I changed the name of my blog. So now, instead of it being Sugarpeach, it is now called Audacious Reader. I will be posting more about why I switched to a self-hosted website. CLICK HERE TO VISIT AUDACIOUS READER I will not be deleting this blog, but I will no longer be posting here. In essence, Sugarpeach is now defunct. If you are an email subscriber here, please resubscribe using the feedburner tab located at the top of the right sidebar of Audacious Reader.If you are an author, please head over to Audacious Reader. I will no longer be responding to review requests sent using the Sugarpeach contact form. Thank you and I hope to see you at Audacious Reader!

Update: Due to problems with my web host company (the company suddenly withdrew their free web hosting policy without warning, disabling my blog and others’ as well) , I was forced to move back to a regular WordPress.com. The link above will bring you to my current blog.

It is Ziggy’s first year at Fuqian International School. He wakes up on the day before his first day of school not remembering anything about his past. His mother asks him to start a diary, thus the birth of The Diary of a Seventh Grade Hybrid. He records each day’s events, even though they get weirder each day. Like his teachers’ suspicious actions. And the secret he keeps hidden under his extra large cap. It is only the matter of time before things starts to unravel and more questions about Ziggy’s past are revealed. Continue reading →

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

Denise lives in Indiana with her husband Kevin and their three sons. In 1996, Denise began her first book, a Christian romance novel, writing while her children napped. Two years later it was published, and she’s been writing ever since. Her books often contain a strong romantic element, and her husband Kevin says he provides all her romantic material, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too!

Shay Brandenberger has built her entire life on the shifting sands of what others think. Constantly seeking the approval of others, she has struggled through a rocky childhood, a failed marriage and single parenthood. Now it looks like she’s losing the ranch that has been in her family for three generations, a surefire way to mark her as a failure in the eyes of the community. When Travis McCoy, the high school sweetheart who very publicly broke her heart fifteen years before, returns to Moose Creek, she is less than pleased. Not only does his re-appearance dredge up a deluge of painful memories, it also reminds everyone in town that it was he who left her, not the other way around. To make matters worse, Shay and Travis are unwittingly paired to play bride and groom in the annual Founder’s Day wedding re-enactment where, much to her chagrin, she discovers he still has the power to take her breath away. Continue reading →

Karen Wojcik Berner lives a provincial life tucked away with her family in
the Chicago suburbs. If it was good enough for Jane Austen, right?
However, dear Miss Austen had the good fortune of being born amid the
glorious English countryside, something Karen unabashedly covets, so much
so that she majored in English and communications at Dominican University. Like the magnificent Miss Austen, Karen could not help but write about the society that surrounds her.

Thank you so much, Evangeline, for inviting me to guest blog today. I am very excited to be here.

My series, The Bibliophiles, is about the members of an American suburban classics book club. Each novel spotlights one or two Bibliophiles and tells the story of their lives up until joining.

For example, A Whisper to a Scream (The Bibliophiles: Book One) is about Sarah, an overwhelmed, stay-at-home mom, and Annie, a P.R. executive dealing with fertility issues. My next book, due out in spring 2012, follows Bibliophile Catherine Elbert as she bounces from coast to coast in search of her true self.

They might be completely different people, but all of the characters share a love of reading and discussing the classics.

Do you have what it takes to join Edwina Hipplewhite and her Bibliophiles for their monthly meetings?

Take this quick quiz and find out.

Whenever you walk into a bookstore you…

head straight for the fiction stacks?

get sidetracked by the magazines?

I don’t go to bookstores.

On your bookshelves, whether they are physical or on your e-reader device, are there…

so many books, you can’t help yourself?

games?

Bookshelves? I thought those things in my house were for family photos.

When relaxing on the beach, your favorite thing to do is…

READ!

play beach volleyball and spike it at my sibling’s face?

drink beverages with tiny, colorful umbrellas in them while napping intermittently?

Do you carry a book or e-reader with you wherever you go?

Of course! One never knows when there might be time to read a few pages.

Only if I can remember it.

Oh, heck no.

When you ponder a world without books, which answer is closest to your reaction?

What? A world without books? It is unfathomable.

Wait, what will all the movies be based on now?

Who cares? There is still television.

Scoring

If you answered mostly As, welcome, kindred spirit. The Bibliophiles would greet you with open arms.

If you answered a mixture of As and Bs, you have potential. Just stay away from the readers at the beach.

If you answered all Cs, I guess it doesn’t matter, because you are probably not even reading this blog.

If you are interested in starting your own classics book club and tackling the literature the Bibliophiles will discuss throughout the series, I have some tips on my website, www.karenberner.com, on the “Read Along with The Bibliophiles” page.

First up is James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, followed by As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, both of which appear in A Whisper to a Scream (The Bibliophiles: Book One). There are even food and beverage suggestions, because that is definitely part of the fun.

Good luck!

About A Whisper to a Scream:

Annie Jacobs has dreamed of the day she would become a mother since the first time she held her Baby Tenderlove doll. Unfortunately, biology has not cooperated with her plan, and she finds herself dealing with a diagnosis of unexplained infertility instead of picking out baby names.

Across town, stay-at-home mom Sarah Anderson is just trying to make it through the grocery store without her toddler hurling a box of rice at a fellow shopper. She is exhausted from managing the house, a first grader and a toddler, all without any help from her work-obsessed, absentee husband.

A Whisper to a Scream is the story of two women on opposite ends of the child-bearing spectrum who come to realize the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side of the fence. A vivid portrayal of contemporary marriage and its problems, the novel speaks to a longing in all of us, a yearning that might start as a vague notion, but eventually grows into an unbearable, vociferous cry.

And now for the giveaway! This giveaway is international. Residents of US/Canada will receive a print copy of A Whisper to a Scream, while residents of all other countries will receive the eBook. This giveaway ends on January 19th.

As you will notice, the Rafflecopter form is different from previous forms. This form is the new and latest version. To enter, you can either fill in your name and email address, or log in using Facebook. The advantage of logging in using Facebook is that you can edit your entries if you make a mistake, and you don’t have to enter your Facebook name when you enter the Facebook like entry. If you choose the name and email address function, you don’t have to use your real or full name. A pseudonym will work just as well. The biggest change this new Rafflecopter widget offers is that it helps to “remember” you so that you will not log in duplicate entries. Of course, this only works until you delete your browser cookies.

Blog Tour Notes

OVERVIEW

Noah lives for piloting spaceships through time, dodging killer robots and saving Earth’s animals from extinction.

Life couldn’t be better.

But the twelve-year-old time traveler learns it could be a whole lot worse. His mom is kidnapped and taken to Mars; his dad is stranded in the Ice Age; and Noah is attacked at every turn by a foe bent on destroying Earth… for the second time.

Get your copy today by visiting Amazon.com (available in paperback or as an eBook) or the online retailer of your choice (more links below).

CASH PRIZES

Guess what? You could win a $50 Amazon gift card as part of this special blog tour. That’s right! Just leave a comment below saying something about the post you just read, and you’ll be entered into the raffle. I could win $50 too by having the most comments. So tell your friends to stop by and comment on this post too!

D. Robert Pease has been interested in creating worlds since childhood. From building in the sandbox behind his house, to drawing fantastical worlds with paper and pencil, there has hardly been a time he hasn’t been off on some adventure in his mind, to the dismay of parents and teachers alike. Also, since the moment he could read, books have consumed vast swaths of his life. From The Mouse and the Motorcycle, to The Lord of the Rings, worlds just beyond reality have called to him like Homer’s Sirens. It’s not surprising then he chose to write stories of his own. Each filled with worlds just beyond reach, but close enough we can all catch a glimpse of ourselves in the characters.

THANK YOU! for visiting. And don’t forget to comment below for that chance to win the $50 Amazon gift card. And of course head on over to your favorite online book store and buy a copy of Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble, for you or for the kids in your life.

After reading about Random Acts of Kindness, I decided to join it. R.A.K. is started by the bloggers at Book Soulmates. The concept is giving without expecting any in return. After joining R.A.K., you post your wishlist and someone might decide to send you a book from your wishlist. You can also send someone else a book if you wish.

Rules:

• Sign up each month you’d like to participate in.

• Show off your participation! Grab one of the buttons available :)

• Create a wishlist and post it in the Google Doc located in each R.A.K post for the month.

{Post on your blog, Amazon, where ever as long as there’s a link to it.}

• If you choose to do a R.A.K for someone, check out their wishlist and contact that blogger for their address.

• At the end of the month, SHOW US YOUR R.A.K!

Make a post saying ‘Thank You’ to whoever granted one of your wishes and share it with us :)

It’s all about review policies today. Review policies are those policies where info is given about the book blogger’s guidelines regarding books sent for reviews. They exist for a reason.

I cannot overstress the importance of reading review policies. Some review policies are just one or two paragraphs long. Others are even longer. But the length doesn’t matter. What matters most is the content in the review policies.

You see, review policies are not just bytes in the web-space. They serve a greater purpose than just to take up bytes. Review policies tell you the book genres bloggers prefer and their preferred book formats. The concise ones also include information about their reviews and important information about author interviews and book giveaways.

You’ve probably heard that it’s never safe to assume or make presumptions. This works the same in book blogging. Never assume that you know what the book blogger wants. Always read their review policy.

After all, why should we spend three hours (or more) to read your book when you cannot even spare five minutes reading our review policy?

Not only that, you will save yourself and us time (time is precious, you know) by reading our review policies. For example, if you read my review policy, you would know that I don’t accept eBooks. If you have read it instead of immediately clicking the email icon on the right, you wouldn’t be emailing me PDFs of your book in the hope that I’ll read them. And no, I am not that easily tempted to read your book no matter how good it sounds. (I am not easily tempted by free books, in case you are wondering.)

To a better bookish future,
Evangeline

This is my first post for the Dear series I’m starting. Each Dear post will either be addressed to authors or book bloggers. This is a monthly series. If you have any topics you’d like to see me address, please let me know in the comment section below. As always, I welcome your opinions. If you read something you like or do not like, let me know! I hope you enjoy this series as much as I enjoy writing them.